Future Content: A Letter from Director of Development Dave Georgeson

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Piestro, Jan 31, 2014.

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  1. Xulore Lorekeeper

    Mostly “meh”. The quarterly updates were high quality and cool, but not big enough to really feel expansion-ish.e 2

    Who said that? lol, they were not high quality at all, they were cookie cutter mold HA's too give an option too sink hole ones self, Garbage at best, the heroic adventures, no creativity at all. I give credit where credits do, this is a great game, mainly because of the people that worked on it before, created it. Im not just bashing , this is how i feel, I think the Devs play WoW. And i think they work at EQ, and they dont have alot of time too work on eq because they are playing wow, and they kinda get wow, but they havent played EQ since it came out, and they dont really get eq, but they get wow, and thats good enough for SoE. So they come and butcher a great game, with idea's from a not so great game, applyed too, a great game. Thats a total shot in the dark,

    But what is fact is that this expan has sucked, VoA was decent, RoF was ok, CoTF is a ball drop big time. Heroic adventures are a slap in the face, and i hope they stop, an annoyance at best, Kill > Hail>kill> location UD>Kill> Open box that spawns adds > hail over , Or some variation of this, with maybe a mini thrown in, Witch is ok for a mission or 2, but you put out T1 HA's , you put out T1B. HA's. And every mission felt the same too me, and there are ALOT of HA's , none are diffrent too me. Lazyness or incompitance has played a roll in this expan big time, and ive seen people quit over this. I really belive that WoW thing, just because if you played the same game i did, you would have a little bit better an idea of how the players felt Also - Credit where credit is due, you realized you cant make good content, so you have admitted your defeat, and are just going too revamp something that did rock, And i really do apploaud this, becuse it could have went the other way where you tryed too do it on your own again, screwed it all up, Where is the staff from the older expans that were good?
  2. Abazzagorath Augur

    Weekly and monthly updates sound like something that will die out quick like all the other high maintenance concepts they have come up with over the years. I'd rather get decent events or temp content every few weeks or months that are good rather than bleh copy and paste stuff meant to hit a deadline.

    Most or all of an expansion release at once again sounds good to me. I wouldn't mind if they would leave the end zone out for a later release though (like convorteum), especially if it meant we could get a more complete awesome end zone (for groupers and raiders).
    Genadine, Edrick, Imrahil and 5 others like this.
  3. Caminaara New Member

    Gear shifting like this from idling to weekly / monthly releases is highly ambitious, but needs to be very tightly managed. Personally, I don't think it'll sustain, but I'd like to see them try.

    Caminaara.
    100 Necromancer.
    <Ghosts Of Norrath>
    Cazic Thule.
  4. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    1. Ask a friend (or anyone really) to join you so you can request a LDoN adventure.
    2. Pop out your Merc.
    3. Request the LDoN you wish to do.
    4. The person who joined you can leave the group (just not the adventure).
    A 5th point would be to suspend your merc, and then you are solo in a LDoN; but I'm not 100% sure if the LDoN won't drop you if you do that.
  5. Hekaton Augur

    I hope for the best but as a player on AB i'm jaded. I'm hoping there's not a weekly patch because lately the patches we do get kill a whole day
    Genadine likes this.
  6. Ratbo Peep Augur

    I'm honestly not even sure *why* the top raid guilds would demand more levels.
    The only reason I can come up with, it that more levels cheapens the content - and make wholesale farming a lot easier.
    That's right - levels are the much hated easy button.
    That, in and of itself, degrades new content the fastest of all things.
    -Rat
    Leerah, Geroblue and BoomWalker like this.
  7. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    We didn't like that you spread it out the expansion, so now you're going to spread out everything?

    1. While a few people don't seem to be bothered by the idea of weekly patches, the majority of the playerbase is not going to like that. The servers coming down once a month is more than enough for most players unless there is a major issue which needs addressed or else people will be completely unable to play. If the majority of these upgrades and changes can usually go live without a patch then the weekly changes will be tolerable.
    2. Aging existing dungeons to end-game levels and itemization; this will only be tolerable if the end-game level version of the dungeon is an instanced version, period. Adding new quests lines sounds great. New zone sweeper I haven't the foggiest what that means. Random world events can be cool as long as the lore is solid. There is some promise here, but the question everyone will want to know is if the revamps will be permanent or temporary; either way they still need to be instanced though.
    3. Does this mean that you are going to be dropping the staggered expansion model? Or at the very least rolling it back more towards what RoF was like? The staggered expansion release model, even with RoF, has been what made expansions feel like they didn't matter in EQ. Granted we have only had 2 of them they have not exactly been that greatly received.
    4. This is just a mistake. Don't lock yourselves into a schedule and say we will do this every week and every month. It is unrealistic and will lead to low quality rushed work in the future which will make players dislike it. Making it happen regularly and dependable is fine, but saying every week and every month is a disaster waiting to happen.

    1. The Weekly and monthly improvement/adventures are going to depend on how well they are designed, how fun they are, and how little they interfere with playing in the existing content. The biggest issue during the Hardcore Heritage season is that players cannot complete old quests (mainly epics) due to the various zones having been revamped; thus for the third time I say make any high level revamps of zones be instanced versions only.
    2. The major focus on the annual expansion content & story will be great as long as that means that it will be condensed into ideally 1 release but 2 releases would be tolerably; any more than 3 releases stretches things a bit thin. This way the content being released has sufficient time to be developed and then tested properly before being released. Hopefully the story focus will again bring out new EQ lore not just try to inject EQ2 lore into EQ.
    Leerah and Baeddon like this.
  8. silku Augur

    How is weekly and monthly releases any difference than the weekly and monthly refinements we are already seeing as patches? I'm not seeing anything here that we aren't already expecting. Every week or so we get a patch, every holiday we are already seeing zone revamps etc. It seems almost like you are making a statement to do what you are already doing, but promising that the expansions will actually be expansions in the future? I think I'd be more comfortable saying I'm for or against this if we had more insight into what exactly this is..

    We know that we already receive refinements and improvements (and nerfs) periodically throughout the year. How/what/when/where etc are we going to be seeing with this new methodology? Will we be getting more new zones each month? Or just like the Guk/Unrest/Sol B revamps that are already there?
    Leerah likes this.
  9. BoomWalker Augur

    Agreed. Perhaps the agile development concept has leaked into the designers area as something 'new' and 'great'....sure...try it...

    Personally, I prefer a slightly modified spiral model by taking what Boehm proposed and adjusting it to where the spiral is a full lifecycle from concept to release.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_model

    Either way...it is a lot of marketing talk in that OP and people have jumped to thinking that each week there will be new content when it was stated

    "straight-up feature refinements" = bug fixes and maybe moving LAAs to the UI (already mostly complete based on last beta but now we get to see the LAA UI changes over several weeks as a "we are doing weekly refinements")...

    "short adventure" = GM events that are one off and you have to be online at the time that SYSTEM WIDE message shows up...run to the arena so two people can duel as 35 level rangers. What is the life cycle of a "short adventure" anyway? Will it run for 6 days and 4 hours (since it will take 20 hours to patch things right?) and then go away? Will it run for 12 hours and 8 hours (20 hour patches ever week chews up 40 hours over 2 weeks)?

    "holiday events" = see "short adventures" above...

    "aging a cool existing dungeon up to end-game levels and itemization" = runs for 24 days 16 hours out of 28 day months? Or does it run longer? Chase items ever 4 weeks?

    "adding a series of quests for players to find and explore" = again...for how long? Forever? Annually recurring?

    Suddenly we are getting lots of 'short adventures' weekly and new 'aging' dungeons or 'series of quests' monthly...great...now we get 52 new things....LAA HoTT UI fix one week, LAA Find Path to PC the next week, a 'short adventure' the following week...and monthly a 'new' dungeon to beat on...or a new 'series of quests'....super.

    So now we can expect an annual expansion that is "better" (bigger, more zones, levels, items, 'tiers', etc.) AND a variable number of 'short adventures'...maybe 20 or so per year and another 12 'new' dungeons OR series of quests...plus actual fixes to the game....'refinements'....

    12 zones....4 tiers....20 raids...40 missions...5 levels...20 'short adventures'....12 'new' dungeons/series of quests....and 32 fixes to the game...annually. Super....let the grand new system start immediately.
  10. Geroblue Augur

    Sure, I can be in the zone all alone, or I can be somewhere I'm not the only player.

    I do go to Glooming Deep, CR, Blightfire, Great Divide, Natimbi, and Greig's End. Great Divide is sometimes empty, sometimes not.

    I happen to like the above zones more than I do Qeynos Hills, Lesser Felwithe, etc. I still think more zones for all levels would be good.

    Ooops. I meant Lessyer Feydark.
  11. Langya Augur

    There really needs to be a "normal" expansion format to accompany all this. Normal being fully defined tiers, with flags/keys and gate keeper events that people can't just hammer through in a few days. There needs to be constant engagement. Perhaps a raid only end tier zone with multiple encounters. All that stuff that worked well in the past, and as much as I hate to say it...there has to be exclusive content again. Players need something to strive for, even if they never attain it. You all have tried the staggered release, and I won't go as far as to say it was a failure since RoF was pretty good when looked at in entirety. Just is, if looked at as an experiment to coincide with resources available, than it should be chalked up as "We tried this and it didn't quite work". Granted, you will do what your bosses tell you can be done with what you have available.
    Geroblue likes this.
  12. Bigbear Augur

    well i dont much like this new concept ...i am a grouper... maybe casual but since i play pretty much every day for a couple of hours that might be a bit much for casual... but i cant stand to raid... hate it with a passion...with that said... just go back to the release of a whole expansion at launch... 4 tiers.. throw in the anniversary content and let it be... i would go back to the locked zones though... and make gear increases per tier matter... like 300ish h/m/e per upgrade and hey hear is an idea... stop making all that dang raid gear so freakin overpowered.. no point in making the raid gear be 800ish h/m/e more than group gear... i understand it needs to be better... but its way out of hand

    current raid gear makes group content trival... and it also means that the jerks that have raid gear can go to group zones and be even more of a jerk by pulling half a zone and make it less fun for everyone else...and the raiders out there that dont like my opinions can suck on my big toe

    i created a thread a week or so ago called "what makes a GOOD expansion" and in it i suggested 48 raids to appease to the raiders and i dont think any raiders liked it... it was too much raiding for raiders.. so that sounds like even the raiders like to do the group content... but the gear makes it trivial... so either raiders like to be bored in group content or they like being jerks... or both

    sorry but i hate the way raid gear is made these days...raid gear should be a tier ahead of group gear... just one tier.. thats it... raid gear should make group content easier not trivial.

    sorry for getting off topic... i think soe should go back to making expansions like HoT but bigger and having locked zones... just my 2cp
  13. Langya Augur

    I still think that the raid game needs to be spun off the group game into two separate titles. You can buy just group content at a discount or buy the full game for a bit more with the raids. Then put all the raiders on one server and be done with it.
    Leerah, Soloist and Bigbear like this.
  14. Bigbear Augur

    if all the raiders go to one server then i could care less how many H/M/E their gear has... i wont have to deal with them
  15. Ronak Augur

    Ah, sweeping generalizations. How I missed you.
  16. Kinadorm Augur

    This all sounds great if SOE can deliver. CotF has been kind of a disappointment so far in regards to the amount of new content added. Hopefully EQ picked up some of the development staff from the SOE titles that closed down so they now have the resources to churn out lots of new quality content at this faster pace.

    When do we expect these changes to start showing up in EQ? Can we expect that the T2 CotF release will be a lot more impressive than the T1 release?
  17. norwuf New Member

    I would like to see an end to endless levels, etc. After a while they are all the same. It seems that a substantial percent of us -- other than myself -- really do enjoy mowing through content and being part of serious raid guilds. But what I would like to see are one or more new servers just devoted to hard-core raiders. Perhaps they would have to have completed some significant content to receive authorization to send a character to one of the new servers. Guilds ideally should be able to exist across the servers. However, a character move should be one-way trip for a character (unless they chose to return without much or all of the super gear that might only be available on the elite servers. And who knows, a large number of we casual players may get motivated to develop one of our characters for promotion to an elite server.
    Leerah likes this.
  18. Langya Augur

    Yes, they are. Thing is, there are two distinct camps with two difference visions on how this game is supposed to be, two different levels of play and skill sets. They do not agree and find no reason to agree as both are 100% convinced that the opposite side is ruining it for the other. So why force it? Ronak, if people want to "raid" for real on a hardcore level, than they already need to either create a character on or move to your server or one of the other 1 or 2 servers hosting a top raid guild.

    Split the game in two and give the option to raid by paying a bit more and having raiding be exclusive to one or two servers that have the entire game on it (raid and group). Then birds of a feather can flock together and players who do not raid do not have to pay for content they won't use and their content can be balanced to group gearing only.

    If you want to raid later on, than pay for the transfer to the raid servers that included that transfer cost and access to the raid content. Also, balancing can be done for each aspect of the game separately. It almost has to be. The void between group power and raid power is too vast to even see the other side of. Granted the group content on the raid servers would be the same as everywhere else and would be defeated easily, but it would not be a casual community so /shrug. The group content will fall fast regardless. It would work, as long as the raid content doesn't have to require the other 95% of the players base subsidizing the development of raid content.
    Leerah likes this.
  19. Battleaxe Augur

    Any cap punishes players that accomplish more. Now I can certainly understand why non-accomplishers might want that to happen - my son's GF who sat in PoK when she logged in got a bit distressed when nobody wanted to group with her level 9 Shaman. She decided the fix was to roll a Warrior, but her level 12 Warrior fared no better.

    Gioing up 5 more levels would mandate level 95 dailies? Why? You do I hope understand I threw away more AA's than I've used in the last year and that level 95-100 is a week/two at most without power leveling. That a group geared 2 person box team ripped though year long expansions in three months or less for a half decade.

    Upgrades to Decap, etc? I wouldn't count on it. SOE might come up a bit short on maintaining game integrity given RL $$$ -> Krono -> pp -> PLing and rare chase items available for a few weeks a year, but even as they look at Krono sales they have to be aware that the selling points of EQ:

    1. It has had the most demanding/best developed raid content.
    2. It's character development through effective in-game effort.not Pay to Win

    are jeopardized. Change that and given two products:
    A. panders to casuals and has infrequent and tepid raid content with 5M+ subscribers
    B. panders to casuals and has infrequent and tepid raid content with 100K subscribers

    B and probably a company that ships content like B disappears. It's one thing to ship FreeRealms or a Minecraftian build a castle with Legos EQ Next and quite another to satisfy fans of character progression games in the D&D/Diku Mud mold.

    Some people don't like character progression games. They never have, and so long as EQ stays at all faithful to the game a lot of us bought 15 years ago, they never will like EQ. There are plenty of casual games for casual players. (In fact with the growth of smart phone and tablet games there's likely to be a slew of them in the near future). And no one will care if you sit in your home city and never do anything in those casual games - that's what everybody will be doing. On the plus side, development of new content will be cheap. Put out a Bunny Hat and everyone will talk about it and argue it should be in the Cash Shop and not require doing the quest.
  20. Bigbear Augur

    as much as i would love to see all the raiders go to a raid server... i seriously doubt that would ever happen... but there really doesnt need to be one if soe would just stop making raid gear so overpowered.. it takes about 2-3 expansions to bridge the gap and thats just ridiculous.. all there needs to be is one tier ahead... raiders would still have better but not so much that the group game is trivial...

    there was a guildmate of mine a few months ago that was asking the guild for some tips/strategy for a RoF group mission.... one person in the guild said that they done but with a bunch of friends from a raid guild and they just zerged it.. raid gear is just so overpowered its sad... my suggestion is this

    (example)
    group tier 1...1000 h/m/e
    raid gear tier 1....1333 h/m/e

    group t2...1333 h/m/e
    raid t2...1666 h/m/e

    group t3 ...1666 h/m/e
    raid t3 ...2000 h/m/e ONLY EXAMPLES

    group t4... 2000 h/m/e
    raid t4 ... 2333 h/m/e

    next expansion would start
    group t1 2333 h/m/e
    raid t1 2666 h/m/e

    raid gear is always one tier ahead... raiders are not so overpowered now and they too can enjoy the group game... yes it will be easier since ur gear is better but it wont be just a walk in the park..

    sounds like a win/win for everyone...even the raiders can enjoy more content since the group game will be somewhat of a challenge too plus you have raids to do and the groupers wont be over run with all the raiders that have way too much gear for the zone they are in..
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